Oh, to be like the Lord. I am coming now to receive the anointing divine.
That last clause might well be taken to compass and cover what we are going to consider at this time: the anointing divine.
We will look at one or two fragments of Scripture.
Luke 24:49
And behold, I send forth the promise of My Father upon you:
but tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high.
Acts 1:4-5
And, being assembled together with them, He charged them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father,
which, said He, ye heard from Me:
for John indeed baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit not many days hence.
Acts 2:33
Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit,
He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.
Galatians 3:13-14
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us;
for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
that upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus;
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
You will have noticed that the coming of the Holy Spirit is so frequently referred to as the promise of the Father. If you study the contextual references to that phrase, you will find that the gift of the Holy Spirit was a promise with a very long history. That is, it dates right back to Abraham.
Paul has here, in this one fragment, stated quite plainly and definitely that the promise made to Abraham would have its fulfilment in the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That promise of God is repeated again and again through the Scriptures, and it receives a special emphasis in the prophets. You will find that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Joel, and Zechariah have something very strong to say about the coming of the Spirit—the day of the Spirit, the promise of the Father.
It is a long-standing promise, and therefore a long-standing purpose of God. What is so impressive is this: while Christ is the central and supreme figure and centre in all the Scriptures, all the meaning and value of Christ, in every respect, was only made effective here by the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Himself said that it would be so. If He did not go away, the Spirit would not come. It was expedient that He should go away for that very reason, surely indicating and implying that all that He had come to do, and did do, waited for its practical effectiveness here upon the coming of the Spirit.
Christ’s life, Christ’s work, Christ’s power as Son of Man here, were dependent entirely upon the anointing. He fulfilled all His ministry in dependence upon the anointing, by the anointing.
That was true in His case, and the Word of God bears that out abundantly. The same is true in our case. If it was true in His case, it must be, if possible, all the more true—certainly equally true—in the case of the Church.
The Church’s life, work, ministry, and power rest solely upon the anointing of the Holy Spirit. And what is true of the whole is true of every part, every individual.
We may have everything that Christ has said and done. We may have it all, and it may mean nothing without the anointing. That, of course, is well known from the fact that He had given His teaching, done His mighty works, lived His wonderful life, died His tremendous death, and risen again in triumph over death.
We might think that that was enough to get on with, and to go out with. But at that very point, with all of that present, He says, “Tarry. Do not go yet. Do not depart from Jerusalem yet. Wait yet. That is not enough until the Spirit come.”
That is tremendously impressive. That is where we begin. It is not fresh light, I am quite sure and aware of that, but we must be impressed. I feel more than ever the tremendous thing that has happened in the giving of the Holy Spirit, and I trust that that is what we are going to be impressed with more than ever in these hours.
The next thing for us to note is that the Holy Spirit was given by the Father to the Son upon the completion of the whole cycle of redemption.
He left the glory. He came out of the ivory palaces. He emptied Himself. He laid aside His garments of glory. He came here and accepted the situation of a bondslave, the position of a man, carried through His great mission, completed redemption, and returned to the Father carrying with Him that completed and finished work.
Upon that finished work, the Father, according to these words, gave Him the Spirit: “Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.”
The giving to the Son of the Holy Spirit was, therefore, God’s seal upon a finished work. God sealed upon a finished work.
If, therefore, you and I, or anyone, are to come into the good of the Holy Spirit—God’s gift to the Son—it will be God’s gift to faith in Christ and His perfected and finished work. That is a statement of fact, but it is also a challenge.
How many of our lives are powerless, bring little honour to the Lord, and are weak and deficient—not because He has not provided the Holy Spirit to make it otherwise, but because we are not resting fully and finally upon a perfected work done by the Lord Jesus.
Put that in another way. While we are in doubt, have a question, or are in any way weak as to this matter of Christ’s perfected work of redemption, with nothing more to be done for us—while we are in any kind of uncertainty about that—the Holy Spirit stands back.
And it is a terrible thing for a Christian who is really an heir of the Holy Spirit not to be living in the good of the gift of God, the promise of the Father.
Settle this whole matter: there is nothing more to be done. He has, by one offering, perfected for ever them that draw near unto God by Him. Settle that, and you have cleared the way for the Spirit.
Live in any kind of way that raises a question—uncertainty about your redemption, your salvation, your acceptance—which means raising a doubt as to whether Christ has done it all, and the Spirit stands back with a veiled face. That is a terrible state to be in.
So I repeat: the Holy Spirit was given to the Son, the Father’s seal upon the accomplishment of the entire cycle of redemption. And the Holy Spirit is given to us, abides with us, and makes His presence real with us when we rest upon the ground of God’s giving the Spirit to His Son: the work finished.
Then we go on. The next thing to note is the particular significance of the gift of the Spirit.
Coming up out of the water and praying, the heaven was opened, and a voice came out of heaven, saying, “Thou art My beloved Son.”
The particular significance of the gift of the Spirit is that He is given as the Spirit of sonship.
Because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
It is true in the case of Christ Himself as Son of Man in His incarnation. The Holy Spirit, coming upon Him, indicated that He was God’s Son—that this One was marked out in sonship.
It is true in the same way of the believer. It is by the receiving of the Holy Spirit that we receive sonship. We are born into the family. We are now sons of God.
The Spirit of sonship—we have more to say about that later. For the time being, let us note what that indicates. If that is true, it represents a momentous thing in the history of this creation. It represents and indicates no less a thing than God restarting a divine family, of which Christ is the First.
Think of that: God restarting a divine family.
The first Adam was created by God and was put on probation by God. He was never adopted. Adoption comes by way of fulfilled probation, to the satisfaction of God.
The last Adam was born, passed probation, and was adopted. The giving of the Spirit to Him was the adoption—that is, the attesting of Him as God’s Son.
So the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of adoption, you see. He is called in the Word the Spirit of adoption. What does that mean? It means being in the family, in this family which God has recommenced with His Son.
It is a tremendously significant thing in the history of this whole creation. God has started over again to form a divine family—sons of God.
Paul makes a tremendous thing of that, as you know, in his letter to the Romans. He says that the whole of this other creation, this old creation, this fallen and cursed creation, groaneth and travaileth in pain.
Creation is groaning. What is it groaning for? It is waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. And we, too, groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption—that is, when the sons shall be manifested, those who are sons shall be manifest.
So the Holy Spirit is the seal and sign of sonship, of membership in the family, of being in this new thing that God is doing. In a peculiar sense, it gives new emphasis and significance to the language: the promise of God—but the promise of the Father.
The Church is Christ in a corporate way. Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians that God “hath anointed us” in Christ. The Church is in Christ; the Church is Christ corporate. By the Holy Spirit, it is made that.
And so, the Holy Spirit coming brings us into the Body of Christ. It is in the Body of Christ that sonship is attested by the Holy Spirit.
Brethren, all the divine values and interests are bound up inseparably with sonship. Be very clear about that. Be very sure about that. Be very strong about this. Let me repeat it: all the divine values and interests are bound up with sonship.
The one thing that God has ever had in His heart and His mind in the creation and existence of man is this: all His interests are in sonship. This matter of sonship is immense in its significance. There is no greater and higher thought in this universe than sonship.
Then, of course, this brings us back to the beginning, to take account—I would that we did recognise it in a new way—of the tremendous significance of a new birth.
The tremendous significance of a new birth: of one person being born anew into the family, receiving the Spirit, and entering into sonship. It is what Christ came for. This is what Christ came for.
And He leaves us in no doubt as to this significance, what it means. He will repeat three times over, “There is joy in heaven amongst the angels over one sinner that repenteth.”
He will put into the balances all the traditions, all the oracles, all the prophets, all the law, and all that has been in the Old Testament on one side; and on the other side, “Ye must be born again,” and say that all goes for nothing if this is not true.
That is not a small “all.” No, this is what Christ came for: to bring this family into being, one by one, adopting, bringing in by the Holy Spirit. That is the mighty work of the Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit at work in might to bring about birth into this thing.
There is no small thing in one being born again.
This is a matter which has suffered perhaps as much as any, if not more than any matter, through prejudice. The whole matter which we call evangelism has suffered much through the cheapness associated with it.
It has suffered much through worldliness being allied to it. It has suffered immensely by not being related to all that God means by having sons, being made something in itself—just being saved, just being born again.
I say it has suffered as much as anything through prejudice and inadequate apprehension of what it means to be born again into the family of God.
No, it is not less evangelism that we want. That is needed. But what is needed is the fullness of the meaning of a soul being saved—the meaning of it—that it should be given its tremendous significance from heaven’s standpoint.
All that ever Christ came for, and all that ever the Holy Spirit came for: the Church would be a very different thing, and Christians would be very different people, if only there were from the beginning a greater knowledge of what is involved in being brought into the family of God, or receiving the Holy Spirit—which is the same thing.
Yes, there is a tremendous significance about this matter. You and I will probably, in this life, never fathom that significance. But if we did understand our own history and experience, and the experience of all the Lord’s children and of the Church, we should be understanding what it means to have received the Holy Spirit.
You see, dear friends, the presence of the divine seed in this earth, in this cosmic realm, is the occasion of a bitter controversy.
You ask, “What is it all about? What is all the trouble about? All the conflict, all the pressure? What is it all about that this world is in—the turmoil and ferment that it is in? What is all this experience of ours, of suffering and trial and adversity and conflict and pressure? What is it all about?”
The answer is here: the presence of a divine seed in this universe.
Now, what I am going to say can be taken wrongly and wrongly interpreted, but what I mean is quite true. Wherever there are Christians, there will be trouble. Make no mistake about it. Of course, that can be understood wrongly, but it is true in a certain sense.
The presence of Christ in this universe is the occasion of all the trouble. There are many illustrations of it in the Old Testament.
All the trouble in Egypt was because God had a divine seed in Egypt. And in the end, like Jonah’s whale, Egypt was glad to vomit them out. Babylon was glad to get rid of them.
It is like that. Their presence represents something—a tremendous disturbance and challenge. That explains our problem.
Until this thing is brought to its final issue—and we shall be speaking about that again later, probably—the trouble will go on. Until we have it all to ourselves, then it will all be at rest. And we are going to have it all to ourselves. That is the end.
The sons are going to be manifested. The saints are going to possess the kingdom. The end of this controversy is going to come about, and we shall be on top there. Indeed, there will be no one underneath.
In the meantime, it becomes more and more acute. Let me repeat the words: it is the very presence of this divine seed that is the occasion of all the controversy and all the trouble.
There is no insignificant thing in being a child of God or in having the Holy Spirit.
Now, all these immense issues of life, conflict, work, and service can only be secured and carried through by the anointing. That is what the Bible teaches.
It teaches it in type and figure in the Old Testament, in many forms of representation within the history of God’s people. His presence was the guarantee of reaching the divine end. The withdrawing of the Spirit meant that the people lost the thing for which they were the people of God.
That is the Old Testament. But what is there set forth historically and typologically is infinitely more true spiritually in our own dispensation.
We are only going to get through. We are only going to survive. We are only going to fulfil our mission. We are only going to do our work by the anointing. We have no other hope. If it was true of Jesus, it is true of the Church and of every believer.
Well, for the present, what are our conclusions? First of all, the Holy Spirit brings into this world and universe a different and unique kind of manhood, or creature, or creation—something different, the like of which is not to be found anywhere else.
A different kind of creature, an order of being—spiritually, first of all.
This ought to be very evident to every true child of God: that, whatever there may be of the earth, down in the deepest part of our being there is a difference from all others who are not in Christ.
We know it. We are aware of it. It is the most real thing in our consciousness and experience—that we are different. A difference has been made. It is as great a difference as that between light and darkness, between life and death.
However that consciously means to us, the fact is the basic fact of our very existence as the people of God. Something has been done; something has happened in us. You may not understand or be able to explain what has happened, but a difference has been made.
Those who have not come that way cannot understand us, and it is no use trying to explain ourselves to them. They never will, until they come to see that basic, initial difference which is the mark of sonship—the mark of the Spirit’s presence and operation.
It is a thing upon which the Spirit works continually all the way through our lives. It begins in a spiritual way. It is a spiritual thing; it is also a moral thing. Now, I use that word in its largest sense. A difference has been made morally.
Here I want to say, for the little time that I have this afternoon, something, dear friends, that you and I have got to see and then lay hold on: that the presence of the Holy Spirit results in a moral difference in us.
By that I do not only mean that it makes us more moral people, decent people, respectable people. I mean that it brings into us a dignity—a dignity which is the beginning of something which is going at last to be consummated in kingship.
It is the spirit of kingship that has been introduced. Now, for its fuller meaning, the Old Testament will open up along that line. But for the moment, leaving the terms, let us recognise this: that the presence of the Holy Spirit, making any man or woman a member of this reconstituted divine family, gives to that man or woman a dignity.
That dignity distinguishes them, or should distinguish them, as, I say, a superior order of people in this universe. Safeguard the word superior. Let us not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think, as being some very important people. But here is the spiritual truth: it is the most dignified thing to be a member of the family of God.
Could a higher and greater dignity be conferred upon anyone?
We are of the great King, of the royal family, destined to reign. That is introduced with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now, the one thing—the one thing—which Satan has always sought to do by any conceivable means has been to dishonour and degrade the sons of God. Make no mistake about it: to bring reproach upon the Father by way of the children.
Look at Israel in Egypt. You notice how the story begins about Israel in Egypt. It begins like this: “Now these are the names of the sons of Israel which came down into Egypt.” Sons—Israel, a prince with God.
Sons of an anointed man. Of that people in Egypt, God said, “Let My son go.” See the figure? Here are the sons of God. But look: if Satan is typified by Pharaoh and his kingdom like Egypt, what is the one determined thing? To degrade them.
Degrade them, make slaves of them, and make them use their strength and their lives to bring increase to the prince of this world.
That is a long story, with many, many sides and aspects. But what may be true in the historical sense in the Old Testament is exactly what is happening now—exactly what is happening.
What is all this work of the enemy about upon you and upon me—the pressure, the harassment, the confusion, and what not? What is it? To make us cringing, self-despising, self-pitying—oh, sorry-for-ourselves kind of people.
We are afraid to lift up our heads and look the world in the face. Is not that true? Is not that the effect that suffering and adversity can have upon us? It robs us of our spiritual dignity as princes with God.
The devil is doing it, and he is trying hard. But this thing—there is no doubt about it. See where we are? How shall we lift up our heads? How shall we be what we are on God’s standpoint—sons of God? How shall we be heralds of His light? How shall we be free?
Oh, this makes us, in the eyes of men, such a despicable crowd. By the anointing only. That is why He is given: to bring this dignity amongst the people.
No, not pride—God forbid. Not conceit, not self-sufficiency. Yes, with our heads, it may be, bleeding from many a battle, yet not bowed; our spirits wounded in the conflict, but not finished. Though I fall, yet shall I rise.
That is the Spirit of Christ. That is what I mean by a moral dignity. Oh, I take this mightily. Do you?
We need the Spirit, but we have the Spirit. What is required? What is the requirement? You and I recognise, first of all, the thing God has done in giving us the Holy Spirit—its effect.
Recognising the ground on which He has given the Spirit—the finished work of His Son—and that He has given us the Spirit, then with both hands of faith we lay hold of the gift. We lay hold of it.
We are today in dark countries. It is difficult. We are tempted. Let us, by the grace of God, say, “God, I have the Holy Spirit dwelling within me, and that is the answer. That is the answer.”
Because of the anointing—the anointing, the shield and the battle-axe—there is great fighting virtue in it.
I must leave it there for this afternoon. But remember, dear friends, all our discipline, all our conflict and travail, is bound up with this matter of sonship.
The transforming from the one old type to the new type in Christ is by a process—terrible, terrible discipline; a painful process of going through transforming cost and work—to be changed from one likeness to another.
But, you see, that is exactly what Paul meant in words perhaps as familiar to us as any words in the Bible:
All things work together for good to them that love God,
to them that are called according to His purpose.
What good? All things—all things. Yes, this discipline, this suffering, this affliction, this seeming frustration, all this, all these things—what are they doing? They are the stuff of our transformation.
They are the stuff by which we are being changed from one form to another, from what we are in ourselves to what we are in Christ. That is infinite good. It is infinite good.
God has hold of it all. God works that good in all these things for them.